POSSESSIVES

sin - si - sitt - sine

In Chapter 9 you were introduced to the possessives - the different forms of min (my/mine), din (your/yours singular) and vår (our/ours) and hans (his), hennes (her/hers) and deres (your/yours plural + their/theirs).

In the 3. person singular and plural, however, there is a reflexive possessive, sin. It is used when the subject of the sentence owns the object, and the other form is used when the subject does not own the object:

The reflexive possessive agrees in gender and number with the owned noun, where sin is the masculine singular form, si the feminine singular, sitt the neuter singular form and sine the plural form.

Other examples:

Note that sin - si - sitt - sine can't be used in the subject:

But:

ADJECTIVES

Comparison

The main pattern for comparison is the following:

Example:

Exceptions

1) Adjectives ending in -(l)ig and -som take only -st in the superlative form:

2) An -e disappears in the comparative and superlative form when the adjectives end in -el, -en and -er:

3) Many adjectives ending in -sk and adjectives ending in -e are compared with mer (more) and mest (most).

Adjectives from the present perfect (example: berømt) and several long words and some foreign words are also compared in the same way:

Irregular comparative and superlative

Example:

Note the following:

1) The comparative form is invariable. The gender of the noun and the number (singular or plural) does not matter:

2) When the superlative form is placed in front of a definite noun the adjectives end in -e. In addition, the definite articles den, det and de, which agree in gender and number with the noun, are required (see also Adjectives, the double definite construction, Chapter 8):

3) When the superlative form appears as predicate after verbs like å være (to be), we can use the indefinite or the definite form of the superlative:

4) We use the superlative form when we compare two items:

ADVERBS

An adverb describes a verb, whereas an adjective describes a noun or a pronoun. We form an adverb by using the neuter form of an adjective:

PREPOSITIONS

Time expressions

A lot of time expressions are formed together with prepositions. Below you are presented with some of these expressions:

The preposition I is used

a) in front of years, months, holidays and other expressions regarding time:

b) in front of seasons. The season you refer to is a specific one, and the tense of the verb will indicate whether you refer to the present season, to the coming season or to the last season. Note that we use the indefinite form of the noun (the season):

c) in front of periods of time:

The preposition OM is used

a) in front of seasons and other periods of time when the periods are repeated. Note the definite form of the noun:

b) to express future:

For _ siden

We use the discontinuous preposition for _ siden to express ago:

The preposition PÅ

Together with weekdays we use på:

SYNES – TRO – TENKE

All the verbs synes, tro and tenke mean «to think», but they are used in different contexts.

Synes is used about a subjective meaning. It can also be translated with «to find» in English:

Notice that synes ends in -s in all forms: å synes – synes – syntes – har syntes. You can find more verbs like this in Chapter 12.

Tro is used when you are insecure about facts. It can also be translated with «to believe» in English:

Tenke refers to the cognitive process of thinking: